“I don’t know what to make of that answer, but as long as you stay out of my way, I will stay out of yours. But I will rescue Old Death, with or without your help, even if I have to fight my way through Heaven to do so.”
Danira shook her head. “Good luck with that.”
“If you want to…” Lucian looked to his cape, which floated to the left of Danira, ready to attack. His crows tilted their heads at him in a way that made Lucian feel sheepish for what he was about to say.
“If I want to what?”
“If you want to do this again sometime, without having to fight each other…”
Lucian pressed his thumb and pinky finger together, vanishing before he could get the words out, and before he could hear her response.
Chapter Twenty-One: Power-Leveling
“You’re such an idiot,” Lucian whispered to himself as his form took shape in his room at Old Death’s home, where he found Ezra asleep on the bed.
While it hadn’t been very long since he had taken Death’s mantle, Lucian was starting to understand how lonely it was. Without his predecessor around to give him advice, or anyone else to talk to for that matter, he wondered what it would be like to do this long-term.
And for three hundred years?
One of his crows floated above his chest, tilting its head as it looked at him.
“I know, you’re my friend,” he told his spherical creation.
The other one flew out of the room, checking the place as his cape had settled on the back of a chair in the corner.
He brought his hand to his crow, feeling its smooth, metallic surface. “Sometimes, it’s just nice to have someone around.”
Lucian took a seat on his bed, a margarita appearing in his hand.
He took a sip from it, shrugged, and finished the glass.
Ezra made its way over to him looking for pets. Lucian listened to its soft purr.
“I’ve got to recharge,” he eventually told the cat as he moved it aside, bringing his feet onto the bed.
The lights in the room dimmed, and Lucian slowly drifted off to sleep.
His dreams rolled over him, the background turquoise and yellow, Lucian on a fishing trip with his dad and his brother. His dad had borrowed a friend’s boat, and Lucian stood in the back next to the engine, watching his brother fish off the front.
Connor turned to him and smiled, giving Lucian a thumbs up.
The fishing line jerked almost as if he had willed it, and the boat started to drift forward as Connor tried to reel in the biggest fish in the lake.
Lucian didn’t know exactly what his dad was saying, but he could sense that he was encouraging Connor to hold the line steady, to lead the fish a little and tire it out.
Connor kept reeling, the fishing pole about to snap, an overwhelming sense of wonder coming over Lucian as he watched the scene play out.
But there was no resolution.
Connor never caught the fish.
He just kept reeling in the line and laughing, looking back at Lucian, the small boat drifting toward the horizon.
Lucian awoke, his stats flashing before him.
He sat up, noticing that it was still dark outside. He made the split-second decision to raise the sun just a little, to add a sense of that early-morning blueness to the room.
The sun did as instructed.
A cup of coffee appeared in his hand and he drank it, turning his television on.
He would have to get stronger.
If he wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to get to heaven through Old Death’s library, there was only one other place he knew to look for an answer.
Lucian finished his cup of coffee and set it on the nightstand, his video game controller appearing in his hands.
“Just for a minute,” he told himself as he started Zero Enigma.
The game started up, and he finished returning the chalice to the cave, completing his last mission. He then went to his menu of available quests, looking for one that allowed him to get into the action.
There was a particular quest that involved storming a small keep on an island to the south, which seemed like it would be something he could do relatively quickly.
He selected this quest, and an icon appeared over the city of Murgnar.
He figured he would pick up a companion on the way, and upon fast-traveling to Murgnar, Lucian went straight to a local market. After a quick jog around the market, he found a pub with a hooded female mage sitting outside, her cleavage partially revealed.
“It won’t be cheap to hire me,” she said, her voice feminine, yet still with an edge to it. “I have slain everything from the warlocks of the north to ghost people of the Lawless Lands. You won’t be disappointed with my services.”
Lucian selected the option that allowed him to persuade her to lower her price.
“You dare insult me?” she asked, a powerful magic rippling around her fist.
He was then presented with an option to either fight her, or pay her 25% more, which he accepted.
As soon as he did, another cut scene played out.
“What would you like to call me?” she asked.
Lucian selected the option that suggested the female mage already had a name.
“I do, but you won’t be able to pronounce it. Please, give me a nickname.”
Lucian grinned as he typed in the name Danira.
“Danira,” the woman said, the game’s AI pronouncing it ‘dah-nye-rah,’ rather than ‘dah-nee-rah.’
He went to the port, Danira following behind him as Lucian carried his scythe like a badass. A few of the townspeople actually commented on him, most saying it looked like he needed to see a doctor.
“If you only knew,” Lucian whispered as they approached the captain of the ship, a Nordic man with a handlebar mustache, and asked for passage to the island.
His first crow landed in front of him, nudging Lucian away from the video game controller.
“I’m going to have to program you not to bother me when I’m playing,” he started to say until he noticed that the crow had a sense of urgency to it.
“Okay, okay,” Lucian said as he paused the game, powering down the system. He followed the crow to another room of Old Death’s home, one that he stupidly hadn’t checked before.
Lucian had never thought to go into his predecessor’s bedroom.
As strange as it was, he never really thought about the other door across the main living area. He was so used to seeing Old Death on the leather couch that looking in the room hadn’t crossed his mind.
Lucian shook his head as he stepped into the adjacent room, his eyes going wide as he took in the space.
His predecessor’s room had all wood furniture and a bed that looked like it hadn’t been slept in for years. There was a picture hanging above the bed of a great ship, a wave lifting up before it with a golden placard on the frame, and the place smelled of sandalwood with a light hint of lemon.
A seven-foot-tall mirror leaned up against the wall, and as Lucian approached it he saw his own reflection.
He didn’t usually spend much time looking at himself in this world, but standing before the mirror definitely inspired Lucian to look himself over.
He turned to the side and rolled up the front of his robes, looking at his chiseled abs. Lucian had a feeling that he could change the way he looked, and to confirm this, he returned his gaze to his own face, to his brown eyebrows and short brown hair.
His hair began to turn black, then white, a beard growing on his face and disappearing, his nose enlarging, his skin turning sallow, his forehead raising and his ears sharpening.
Lucian snapped his fingers and everything was the way it once had been.
His cape came tearing into the room, startling Lucian.
It settled on his shoulders and the hood came up, hiding his face.
It was almost like a Halloween costume, the kind that someone had spent days putting together.
His two crows came
to him, buzzing around his shoulders and leading him to the other side of the room, where Lucian found a desk with books on it and…
A map?
The map was tucked under one of the books. It was old, and it showed a great mountain with other mountains surrounding it. He didn’t recognize the location, with its long plateau that separated the lower half from the top, and nothing was labeled on the map aside from a simple compass to the right of one of the mountains.
“Who found this?” he asked his crows.
The first one turned to the second, nodding his head.
“Good job. I don’t know what it’s a map of, but it must be important. I’ll figure it out. And I know who can help,” he said as he carefully folded the map, “but I’d like to get stronger first, and we’re going to need more weapons.”
Lucian turned back to his bedroom, ready to come up with some high-tech awesomeness.
Lucian North and his crows appeared in a different hallway of the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, his cape immediately detaching itself.
“You sure are eager,” he told the swath of fabric as it floated in front of him.
He took a look at his stats, noticing that while he hadn’t invented that much, it had still taken a good chunk of his Soul Points.
Actually, it wasn’t a huge chunk, but considering he only created two new things, it was a considerable amount.
Just like a video game, the more powerful Lucian became, the more it would cost him to create items that he needed.
But he was fine with it, especially now that he was power leveling at the psychiatric ward.
Lucian looked down the hallway, ready to launch into action.
His scythe took shape and he handed it off to his cape. Lucian went for the new weapon he had created.
The weapon had three muzzles, and when he squeezed the trigger they fired an energy-laden trip wire that was able to wrap around an enemy and pin it to the wall or to the ground.
He had tested it multiple times back in his apartment, and it was a fairly awesome way for him to quickly overpower a parasite. Once he had developed the main concept, he also added an electric shock factor to the trip wire, which would give Lucian even more leverage as he cut through the demon bugs.
Lucian motioned his cape and his crows into the room on the left. He pressed through the wall to find a woman sitting on the ground, her knees to her chest as she scraped her fingernail on the floor.
The parasite on her back flared up, and Lucian fired his weapon and pinned it to the wall behind the woman.
As it struggled to get out of the grasp of his trip wire, the parasite’s form sizzling due to its electric confines, one of Lucian’s crows tore into the vertical eye on its back.
A spiral of light drained off its body as he stepped back out to the hallway. He noticed that he had disturbed the next two rooms, and the parasites were tearing through the wall, firing tentacles at him.
Mouths on the end of the tentacles opened, cutting through the air as Lucian’s cape shot forward, bringing its scythe through several of the tentacles.
His crows helped out as well, both of them zipping into either room, trying to take out the parasites’ vertical eyes.
Not able to use his trip wire gun, Lucian went with his MX-11 and his carbine, running toward the two groupings of tentacles and firing both weapons at once.
He jumped into the air, sailing over a tentacle that started to produce a sharp blade, and from there he hit the wall, bouncing off and landing again, finishing the magazine on his carbine, and the power pack on his MX-11.
The glass facing the hallway shattered, and two huge blobs of parasites spilled out, merged together, and spiraled toward Lucian.
He went with his lava sword, cutting the tip of the tentacle just as they reached him, more tendrils going for his legs. He cut through another large blade heading in his direction, his legs now completely wrapped up by clear tendrils with a red residue inside.
They tightened, and Lucian responded by hacking them away, his flesh searing as the tendrils released an acidic liquid.
A blade the size of a surfboard shot out of an opening on one of the tentacles, stabbing right into Lucian’s chest and pulling him upward and slamming him against the ceiling. He managed to pull his body off the blade and fell to the ground, his cape coming around him and protecting him as Lucian healed.
That was another thing he had practiced back in his bedroom, his cape making a barrier around him, not unlike that of a porcupine, its structure enhanced by his own clothing, which merged with it, making it stronger and sharper.
Once Lucian was healed up, he pressed back to his feet, using his claws to fight back at some of the tentacles.
It was time.
Four crows appeared in the air, these ones all black with red circles around their eyes.
They shot off toward one of the conjoined parasites at the far end of the room and dove into its body, all exploding at once.
The blood and guts hit the air, enough to cause Lucian to shield his eyes.
He felt the light moving into him as he conjured four more of what he was calling injurecrows, sending them off toward the room on the right.
The injurecrows found their target and exploded. A grin crossed Lucian’s face as he avoided a set of razor-sharp teeth coming right at him.
He grabbed a neck-like limb and squeezed it with his claws, ripping it in half as his cape sailed into the final room, clutching his scythe.
Lucian quickly joined it, watching as the parasite tried to fend off his cape. Stingers took shape on its back and curled forward, and Lucian drove his fists into the creature’s body.
He felt the burn all the way up to his forearm, and as he pulled out, the creature tried to spit acid in his eyes. Lucian’s other arm came up just in time to swipe away its mandibles.
Lucian kept its mandibles at bay as one of his crows sunk into the vertical eye on the back, the monster letting out a hiss before finally dying.
Lucian stumbled out of the room, his stats appeared before him.
“Not bad,” he said to himself as he turned to the stairwell, making his way up to the next floor.
Lucian’s form took shape in his brother’s backyard.
He felt stronger than ever, having taken out another eleven additional parasites back at the Psychiatric Center.
His killing spree had done a number on his available SP, but he had the advantage of gaining more with each kill, which helped pad expenditure to a degree.
His newest creations, especially his injurecrows, were going to go a long way in making him a formidable opponent.
While no one had come after him aside from Danira, Lucian knew that his sudden increase in power would raise some eyebrows.
Old Death had suggested that others like him were quite competitive, and with this in mind, Lucian planned to be ready for anything going forward, banking Soul Points just in case he had to fight his way out of the situation.
Some yelling from inside Connor’s home interrupted Lucian’s thoughts. He floated into the house to find his older brother arguing with Samantha.
“There was nothing I could do about it!” Connor said, the tone of his voice telling Lucian that he was trying to stop himself from getting too angry.
“You have been there how long? Seven? Eight years? You must have seen it coming.”
“It’s not my damn fault.” He dropped his fist onto the counter.
“Stop beating on things,” Samantha growled. She looked intimidating at that moment, but Lucian could see she was starting to back away.
“I will find another job,” Connor said, turning away from Samantha. “And I’m sorry. Sorry for yelling.”
“How were you just fired? It doesn’t make any sense. From what you told me, you’ve been doing everything you’re supposed to be doing there.”
“I have been, above and beyond.”
“Then why were you fired?”
“I told you, Sam, I don’t fuck
ing know!”
“You have to know something!”
“I… The boss is looking to hire new people,” he said with a grunt, not making eye contact with her. “It’s not my fault.”
“What are we going to do about the mortgage?”
Connor shook his head, and at that moment Lucian noticed that his nose had started to bleed. His older brother wiped the blood away, keeping his back to Samantha as he made his way down to the basement. “I’ll figure it out,” he said with finality, slamming the door behind him.
Lucian watched Samantha sit on the kitchen floor. She brought her knees to her chest and started sobbing. He wanted to say something to her, even if he knew his words would be of no help.
Tuck the cat made his way toward Samantha, looking up at Lucian and pausing.
“That’s it,” he told the cat, “go to her.”
The cat froze until Lucian backed away.
Rather than stick around, he pressed thumb and pinky finger together, reappearing in Old Death’s home.
Lucian sat down on his bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. One of his crows appeared before him. He looked at the crow for a moment and bit his lip, hating that he wasn’t able to help his brother’s family in some way.
“With all this power…” he whispered to himself, remembering how strong he had just been at the Psychiatric Center, whirling and cutting through parasites, getting better and better with his weapons, with his heavy artillery.
In the end, he was still powerless.
Lucian moved to his balcony, looking out on the sparkling city in the distance, his heart heavy. A breeze picked up, and Lucian took this is a signal that he needed to rest up.
Hoping to enjoy the cold breeze, he floated his bed out of his room, the mattress pressing through the glass as if it were merging into a waterfall. Lucian climbed on top and floated out just a little bit further, lowering it toward the valley below, to the banks of a small river.
His crow following him, Lucian sat on the bed with his legs crossed, staring out into the distance. Once the bed was in place over the river, he lay back onto it, feeling even colder than he had been on his balcony.
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